Poland’s human rights commissioner is “anti-Polish” for criticising own country, says president

Poland’s president has accused the country’s top human rights official of being “anti-Polish” because he gave an interview to foreign media warning that Polish democracy is under threat.

Speaking to AFP, Adam Bodnar, the human rights commissioner, said that Poland is heading “in the direction of an undemocratic state”, with the country’s rulers “trying to incapacitate or take over additional power mechanisms one by one”.

Bodnar also criticised the European Union for failing to deal more firmly with the Polish government. Brussels “hasn’t really accomplished anything” other than giving the Polish government “time to introduce and solidify changes”, including “the subordination of the judiciary”, he said.

In response, President Andrzej Duda – who has been in office since 2015 and is an ally of the ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party – criticised Bodnar for “expressing to the international community opinions…unsupported by objective facts [and that] have nothing in common with reality”.

The “slogans” proclaimed by the human rights commissioner “are in my view simply anti-Polish and, from the Polish point of view, anti-state”, said Duda, who added that presenting them to an international audience makes the situation even worse.

Duda pointed out that “absolutely unquestioned democratic elections are held” in Poland. The president himself narrowly won re-election for a second term last year, while PiS has won the last two parliamentary elections with an unprecedented independent majority.

Observers from the OSCE have noted that Poland’s last two elections – the presidential one of 2020 and the 2019 parliamentary vote – have been well organised and that candidates were generally able to campaign freely.

However, they also found that “intolerant rhetoric detracted from the otherwise competitive process” and that the public broadcaster, which is under the influence of PiS, “failed in its duty to offer balanced and impartial coverage”.

A number of international bodies have also found democracy to be under threat in Poland. Last week, Freedom House reported that the country has recorded the biggest recent decline in democracy across 29 countries in the region. The NGO no longer classifies Poland as a full democracy.

In his remarks, Duda said that Bodnar’s comments raise “serious doubts as to his qualifications” for the position that he holds and “shows that a change of commissioner is an urgent matter”.

Bodnar will soon be forced out of his role following a ruling against him by the Constitutional Court (TK), which is headed by a close associate of PiS chairman Jarosław Kaczyński and seen as being under the influence of the ruling party.

The commissioner’s term officially expired last September. However, parliament – which is divided between the PiS-controlled lower house and opposition-controlled upper chamber – has been unable to agree on a replacement. Bodnar has therefore remained in his role, but the TK ruled this unconstitutional.

PiS had twice attempted to nominate one of its own MPs as the new human rights commissioner. The first time, he was rejected by the opposition in the upper house; the second effort has yet to be voted on by the Senate.

Bodnar has repeatedly clashed with the PiS government on a range of issues. It was due to his intervention that a court ordered the media takeover by state oil giant Orlen to be suspended last month; that anti-LGBT resolutions were overturned in court; and that some coronavirus restrictions were declared unlawful.

Bodnar has also been an opponent of the government’s judicial policies, which have been condemned for violating the rule of law by a range of international institutions as well as the domestic opposition.

Main image credit: Adam Guz/KPRM (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.